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Residents ask city council again to repeal open leaf burning

Before a packed council chamber on Monday night, council members were again asked to appeal the city’s open burning ordinance, the third time this spring residents have made the request.

Jennifere Lemke again asked council to repeal the open burning ordinance that allows the burning of leaves in the spring and fall during a four-week period.

A petition opposing it with 123 signatures and a “Facebook Agreement with Petition” with 33 signatures have been submitted to the city, which also received several letters supporting the ordinance.

Lemke introduced Dr. Jack Murphy, a retired Boone family physician, who said the problem with leaf burning is not just allergies, but the micro particulate matter that rises from its smoke, which is different from wood smoke. The micro particles make their way into the lungs’ air sacs where they stay permanently.

Dr. Murphy said that it not only causes problems for children and asthmatics, but it also causes problems for the elderly with emphysema and heart problems when they go outside during leaf burning.

City Administrator Luke Nelson noted the council action form recommended amending the ordinance, citing the “health impact” as the main reason to ban it. It also noted that Dr. Jay Brown’s remarks to council last month justified repealing it. An allergist and asthma specialist at the Boone County Hospital Specialty Clinic, Dr. Brown said people with asthma, allergies and chronic obstructive lung disease are “populations that are specially sensitive to the particulates that come from burning leaves, which is a particular threat to my patients.”

Council members stressed any possible action would not affect so-called recreational fires, such as grilling or burnings logs.

Erin McCloud of Boone said this spring she filled about 80 pounds of leaves in bags from her neighbors’ trees, not hers. She pays to have them hauled away, she said, but they sometimes sit around for days due to pick-up dates.

“It if rains and it gets hot, they then smell like sewage, and everything in the neighborhood reeks and it’s disgusting,” she said. “A match costs pennies.”

Jennifer Burkamper, a 14-year Boone resident and an asthmatic, told council members that “if one of your family members or one of your children couldn’t breathe during (burning periods), you’d be thinking a lot differently.”

She believed in private property rights, she said, “but it shouldn’t affect me what you do on your property.”

Mayor John Slight told Lemke that council would make a decision next month.

Residential sewer lines

In May, Sara Morton and Nicole Arringdale, who live at 1522 and 1727 Story St., respectively, asked the city’s utility committee and council if they could receive financial help to repair their broken sewer lines.

They said about five homes nearby had similar problems and questioned if the city’s three-year sewer line rehabilitation project, completed in the northeast section of the city in 2013, had caused them.

Council commiserated, but cited the city’s ordinance requiring residents maintain their sewer lines to the city’s main line.

Facing a repair bill just under $10,000, Morton repeated her request. The sewer backed up four times last year, she said, adding it’s “almost been a year now that sewage has been going into the ground outside of my house. How do you know that other homes don’t have these voids outside of their home and it just hasn’t shown up yet?”

Morton said her plumber said the “main damage” was in the middle of Story Street. She applied for the city’s Property Protection Program grant of up to $2,500 for “sewer back-up issues.”

Nelson said “since the issue came up” two other residents reported broken sewer lines, but they are not located in the city’s northeast section.

Councilman Gary Nystrom reiterated the city’s ordinance requiring homeowners be responsible for their sewer lines. City staff will inspect the line when it’s excavated, he said.

School resource officer

Council authorized the COPS grant application to the U.S. Department of Justice by Boone Police Chief and Public Safety Director Bill Skare. The three-year $125,000 grant would partially fund the return of a school resource officer (SRO) to the Boone Community School District (BCSD), which cut it this year citing a budget shortfall. The SRO began working in schools in 2011. Initially, the district paid 75 percent of the cost.

BCSD Superintendent Brad Manard signed a memorandum of understanding between the two entities, which reportedly will give the application a boost. The city’s four-year share, coming from its Trust and Agency fund, would be approximately $230,000, Skare said.

In other business:

-Council approved the sale of city property at 205 17th St. to Habitat For Humanity, which builds low-income housing for qualified applicants in Boone and Greene counties.